Your chances of having a sudden cardiac arrest can depend on where you live, warned Dr. Paul Dorian today at the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress 2012 in Toronto, co-hosted by the Heart and Stroke Foundation and the Canadian Cardiovascular Society.
His study of Greater Toronto Area (GTA) neighborhoods with high and low rates of cardiac arrests found that the factors causing increased risk are complex. "The reasons are more multifaceted than traditional explanations of income, social economic status and education levels," says Dr. Dorian, who is a researcher and cardiologist at Toronto's Kennan Research Centre, St. Michael's Hospital. "It's important to understand these differences to support better health outcomes."
He says his team is exploring heart-healthy behaviours, cultural and ethnic factors as possible other factors that may account for the large differences in cardiac arrest rates between neighbourhoods.
The research, led by Katherine Allan, PhD candidate, compared 20 GTA neighbourhoods with the highest and lowest incidences of cardiac arrests that take place in the home or public places.
The demographic, social and economic characteristics of the neighbourhoods were compared to identify similarities or differences, including age, sex, income levels, education and social inclusion. Rates of diabetes and high blood pressure were also compared.
"Cardio-toxic neighbourhoods," a term coined to describe communities with higher incidence of cardiac arrests, have three to five times higher rates of cardiac arrests. Cardiotoxic neighbourhoods tended to comprise older persons with slightly higher rates of diabetes and high blood pressure. No single factor explained the variability between the neighbourhoods.
The study looked at over 5,500 cardiac arrests in the GTA between 2006 and 2010.The residential address of each out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patient was spatially mapped to one of 140 Toronto neighbo
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| Contact: Jane-Diane Fraser jfraser@hsf.ca 613-569-4361 x273 Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada Source:Eurekalert |
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